


Alpha Two

by MindfulWrath



Category: Fake AH crew - Fandom, Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Achievement Hunter Heists, Alternate Universe - Grand Theft Auto Setting, Gen, Heist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-11
Updated: 2015-12-09
Packaged: 2018-03-30 00:58:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3917248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MindfulWrath/pseuds/MindfulWrath
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It doesn't rain often in Los Santos, and he wishes it had waited one more day. Tonight is a terrible night for rain.</p>
<p>But he doesn't complain. He never complains. He puts on his face, gathers his gear, and goes to work.</p>
<p>He is very, very good at his job.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It's raining, and the cat is asleep on his chest. Ordinarily he wouldn't mind either of those things—would be grateful for them, in fact—but tonight he's having trouble staving off annoyance at the both of them.

"Edgar," he coos, rubbing the cat's cheek with one scarred knuckle. Edgar cracks open one eye and starts purring. "Daddy's gotta go to work, buddy. I'm gonna need you to get off me, okay?"

Edgar closes her eye and purrs even louder, digging sharp claws into the thin black t-shirt, and into the skin underneath.

"All right, c'mon, I'm gonna be late." He slips his fingers under the cat's stomach and lifts her gently. Edgar digs her claws in and mewls. "Uh-huh, sure, I'm the meanest. Let go of my shirt, buddy."

Edgar continues complaining as she's pried from her spot. He mocks her.

_"Oh, woe, woe is you!"_ he sings, and plants a kiss on the cat's head before placing her on the floor. "Ya big baby. C'mon, I'll feed you before I go. Want dinner?"

Edgar's bristling displeasure evaporates on the instant, and she scampers off in a calico blur into the darkness of the apartment.

He stretches, working kinks out of his back and neck, cracking his knuckles and rolling his shoulders. A hundred hues of neon light filter through his windows and paint him with thin strokes of shadow, imitating the shape of the rain on the glass. He pads down the hall, his feet making hardly any noise on the polished pine floor. Edgar is meowing insistently from the bathroom, and he murmurs platitudes to her as he pours premium kibble into her bowl by the soft glow of a bluebird night-light. She digs in with immense gusto, and he rubs her behind the ears again.

"I'll be back soon, buddy," he promises. "Don't wait up for me."

Just then, his earpiece chirps, adding a flashing red light to the darkness. He slips out of the bathroom and answers the incoming call.

"Ryan! Where the _fuck_ are you, man?"

"The cat was asleep," he explains, making his way back to the living room. He pulls on his steel-toed boots and begins tying them. "It's not like I'm late."

"Like hell you're not late! We're outside, like, _now._ Get the fuck down here!"

"I'm coming," he assures the other, shrugging on his leather jacket. He adjusts the glock in his shoulder-holster, checks the fit of the AK where it sits against the inside of the jacket. He runs his fingers along the menagerie of knives tucked into his belt.

"Ryan," another voice cuts in, less aggravated but equally impatient, "thirty seconds or you can drive yourself."

"I got it," he assures them, taking a pair of leather gloves from the jacket's pockets and tugging them on. He lifts the grinning black mask from its hiding place amongst the sofa cushions and pulls it over his head. He feels ready, now that he's wearing his face. "I'm coming down the stairs now."

"Fucking _Christ,"_ the first voice curses. "What does he think this is, a fucking picnic?"

"I can still hear you," he mentions.

"Oh, 'scuse me, did I hurt your feelings? Hurry the fuck _up,_ ya piece of shit."

He pushes out the back door of the apartment building and jogs to the sleek black sports car waiting on the curb. He slips into the back seat and pulls the door shut. Water slips down his leather jacket onto the leather seats. His boots leave small puddles on the rubber floor mats. His second face is glittered with raindrops.

"Hey, nice, twenty-eight seconds," the man next to him comments. He smells of hookah and is holding a half-eaten taco over a fast-food wrapper in his lap.

"Oh, were you timing him? That's fucking fantastic, 'cause I just assumed we were already fucking late," the man riding shotgun snaps, glaring over the back of his seat.

"Whatsa matter, Michael, you nervous?"

"Shut the fuck up, Ray, you're a piece of shit too."

Ray laughs and takes another bite of his taco. Ground beef and processed cheese spill out the back of it and land with a wet _plap_ on the wax paper.

_"All_ right," the driver sighs, drumming tattooed fingers on the steering wheel. "Can we go? Is everybody done whining?"

"You coulda been driving like _five minutes ago!"_ Michael accuses.

"Don't make me stop this car."

"It's already stopped," he points out. He's smiling under his face.

"It's _your_ fault we're late anyway!"

"Oh. My God," Ray declares. "Can we fucking go already?"

"Buckle up, boys," the driver instructs. Without waiting for responses, he steps on the gas and the car peels out with a roar, zooming into neon lights and the shadows of rain.

* * *

 

"Everybody in position?"

"Nah, I decided to get another taco."

_"Ray."_

"Fine, God, I'm in position, take the stick outta your ass, Geoff."

He is watching Geoff through the scope of a sniper rifle that isn't his. The other is drumming his fingers on his biceps, making the stenciled pictures on his knuckles flicker and dance. It's still raining, and visibility is poor.

"Is everybody _else_ in position?" Geoff asks, his mustache twitching.

"I'm good," Michael confirms.

"Ready," he says.

"Okay, finally. Gav, Jack, you up there?"

"Chopper team is ready," another voice cuts in. It's accented, something English, although he never bothered to learn exactitudes. It's better he doesn't know.

"Not for long, if you keep flying like that," the sixth warns. She speaks in a baritone. _Jack_ is a woman's name.

"Oy, last time _you_ flew, we got absolutely mullered and nearly crashed into the bloody mountainside!"

Geoff makes a noise of exasperation that traverses three full octaves. "Will everybody _shut up?"_

The rain is slipping under his collar, soaking through his dark jeans. The inside of his face has grown hot and moist with his breath. He hasn't moved in nearly half an hour.

"We got a bogey," Ray reports. "Hey suit, nice umbrella, your three-year-old pick it out for you?"

He does not shift focus, although he sees Geoff do it. "Ray, you got this one?" he asks.

"Yeah, if I don't get _blinded_ by his fucking umbrella. Who the fuck buys an umbrella like that?"

"Jesus fucking Christ," Michael grumbles. "This is gonna be like the fucking lab thing all over again."

"That wasn't my fault," Ray points out. "Taking the shot."

There's a _crack,_ sharp, cutting through the white-noise of the rain. For a moment, he strains his ears for the sound of alarms.

"Gee, Ray, I think you might've given us a little too much warning there," Geoff gripes. "Why don't you tone it down next time?"

"Oh, what, like any of you were gonna do anything about it?"

"Yeah, ya idiot, take the fucking _shot_ if you _missed."_

"I don't miss."

He chuckles under the black latex of his face. "Yeah, except for that time you shcapped Geoff in the—in the shoulder."

_"Shcapped?"_ Gavin demands, incredulous.

"What the fuck does _shcapped_ mean?" Ray wonders, laughing.

"You knew what I meant," he accuses. "I was going for _shot_ and _capped,_ and it just got a little messy, okay?"

Michael is laughing into his hand. It's a distinctive sound.

"Guys, can we get back to the _job?"_ Geoff cries, exasperated.

"Hey, uh," Jack interjects, "it looks like a coupla security guys are coming around the building, you might wanna get a move on."

"Ah, shit," Michael curses. "Already?"

"Yep, looks like it."

"Fuck _me._ This is bullshit. Ryan, you got your shit ready to go?"

"Yep," he answers. He centers Geoff's head in the crosshairs and finds his own heartbeat. The rain is seeping between his faces.

"Michael, you go for the guy on the right?" Ray suggests.

"Yeah. Jack, can you give us a countdown?"

"I gotcha."

He sighs out a breath and doesn't inhale again. Geoff is chewing one curl of his mustache.

"Okay, here they come. Aaaaand, three, two, one—"

_Cra-kack!_ Two shots, so close together they're nearly the same sound. He breathes again and blinks for the first time in minutes. His trigger finger is stiff.

"Fuckin' _nice,_ man," Michael comments. "That was awesome."

"Quit jerking off about it and go get the package," Geoff snaps. "Ray and me'll cover you. Ryan, get down there and watch his back."

"Are we taking the _whole_ package?" he inquires, disassembling the borrowed rifle. It stows neatly in a black suitcase, which he hides under a bush.

"Don't blow anything up," Geoff orders.

"I wasn't gonna blow anything up, I was just _asking_ if we were taking the _whole_ package."

"Yes! Why would we only take part of the package?"

_"I_ don't know, you never specified."

"Hey chopper team," Ray mumbles. "You guys doin' good up there?"

"Look, I've worked out how to make it spin round in circles," Gavin reports happily. "I can see everything!"

"Nice."

"Ugh, Gavin, I'm gonna be sick."

"But how'll I keep lookout three hundred and sixty degrees?"

"By turning your head, ya fucking moron," Michael interjects. "Ryan, where the fuck are you?"

He slides down the hillside, leaving a pair of smooth tracks in the mud. He stumbles into the parking lot where three dead bodies are soaking in the rain. One of them is still holding a brilliantly pink umbrella.

"I'm in the parking lot, where are _you?"_

"Oh. I'm comin' down the hill, don't shoot me."

"Don't you mean don't _shcap_ you?" Ray points out.

He laughs. The glock is warm from his body heat. He can feel it even through his gloves as he draws it from his jacket.

"Oy, I've had a thought. There's three-hundred and sixty degrees in a circle, right? So is that why there's, like, three-hundred and sixty days in a year? Is each day, like, a degree?"

There's a beat of silence.

"What?"

"There's three-hundred and sixty- _f_ _ive_ days in a year, Gavin," Jack admonishes.

Michael shoulders his way out of the brush in a shower of droplets. He nods, and together they move off towards the imposing grey cinderblock of a building.

"Gavin, what the fuck are you talking about?" Geoff wonders.

"What? It makes sense!"

"No it fucking doesn't!" Michael cries. His lips move visibly under his black ski mask. The fabric is plastered to his skin by the rain.

"Maybe in Gavin-land, it does," Ray says. "Hey, let's just chop five days off the end of the year, yeah, that makes sense, then it'll be like a circle."

"No, but, it _would_ make sense, right? Like, how do we know there's three-hundred and sixty degrees in a circle, right? Like, who even came up with that? There could be . . . however many it was."

"Do you seriously not know how many days are in a year?" Jack asks.

"No, I—what?"

"You're a fucking idiot, Gavin," Geoff sighs.

He moves behind Michael, his shoulders relaxed, his hand loose on his gun. Security won't come around again for several minutes. There's plenty of time to get everything done.

Michael stops for a little while in front of the keypad and pokes in the code. His finger is made clumsy by the glove and the rain, and it takes him two tries to get it right. The door opens, and Michael slips in. He follows, two body-lengths behind.

It's dark inside. Only one out of every six lights is on, punctuating the hallways with a dim fluorescent glow. Light spills through some of the thin windows to either side—people working late, he thinks, but most likely not security.

"Hey, Geoff, where the fuck do we go now?" Michael hisses.

"Uhh," Geoff mumbles. "Hang on a sec, lemme get the thing."

"Real professional there," Ray comments. "This is going _awesome."_

"Okay, uhh, looks like you're gonna go up to the third floor. This place is a fucking maze, though, so I'm just gonna give you directions as you go."

"Fucking great," Michael grumbles. He shoves open the stairwell door and enters. He does not hold it for him. "How're we looking for security inside?"

"Shouldn't be a problem, until you get to the room itself. Just don't make a lot of noise and you'll be fine."

Footsteps on the stairs make noise, and creaking leather, and old rain dripping onto concrete floors and landings. Even the strained whisper of Michael's voice is too loud, too loud, in the humming silence.

His shoes squelch on the carpet of the third floor. Geoff tells them to go left. Michael checks to make sure he's still behind him. He nods, and Michael continues on. The gun feels like part of his hand.

They go right, down a hall, right again, left through a curved passage, through a set of doors, left and right and left. He is not lost. Michael curses at every turn.

"Three thirty-six, is that it?" Michael demands, finally. The door is huge, three times as wide as his shoulders, made of corrugated steel, locked tightly. Red numbers shine out from a keycard reader set into the doorframe.

"That's it," Geoff confirms. "Buckle up, boys, this is where it gets bumpy."

"Thanks, dad," Ray drawls.

He chuckles. Michael takes aim, takes a breath, and shoots the keycard reader square in the red numbers, three bullets as fast as his finger can squeeze.

_Ban-ban-bang!_ And for a moment afterwards, there's silence.

Then there are alarms, and he rips open the door and shoos Michael through, promising to cover him. Michael darts inside the sterile lab, shoes squeaking on the linoleum floor.

He can hear security running down the hall already, even through the alarms. His skin is too warm underneath his face. He breathes. He takes aim.

He shoots Michael in the back of the head.

 


	2. Chapter 2

_"What the fuck was that?"_ Geoff screams in his ear. He sprints down the hallway, a stream of disconnected curses flowing from his mouth. Security is on the way, thundering through the building behind him.

"Michael, Ryan, what the fuck just happened?" Geoff demands again.

"They shot him!" he cries, ducking behind a corner for cover while he catches his breath. Right and left and right, through a set of doors, right down the curved passage, two lefts and a right. He runs the directions through his head over and over. He will not get more than one chance to get out.

"Shit!"

"Oh,  _fuck,_ is he dead?" Ray demands.

"Yeah," he pants. He starts off again, only jogging now, the glock held down by his hip. "Yeah, Jesus Christ, he's dead."

There's an explosion of cursing from Gavin, muffled expletives from the other three.

"Did you get the package?" Geoff asks.

"Who  _cares_ about the bloody package?" Gavin cries. His voice does not so much break as shatter in twelve places.

"I didn't," he admits, breathless. "I'm . . . getting out. Too dangerous."

"Shit," Jack swears. "Okay, we can come in for extraction whenever you need us."

"Geoff and I should be able to get clear on foot," Ray says. "Geoff, see you back at the car?"

Geoff sighs, and he can hear him rubbing his face.

"Uhh, yeah. Yeah, okay. Just—everybody get out alive, okay? Ryan, you head for the roof, Jack and Gavin, go pick him up."

"Gotcha."

When he gets to the stairs, he continues up, and up, and up. The building is swarming like a kicked anthill. He wonders if they've found Michael's body yet. He wonders how long it will keep them occupied.

The roof exit is locked, and no matter how hard he tries, he can't kick or force it open, and he has to put three bullets through the lock. Even then, he has to throw himself against it six times before it dumps him out onto the slick white concrete of the roof, under sickly orange skies and the pouring rain.

"I see him!" Jack cries into his earpiece. "Gavin, take us down!"

The helicopter roars down out of the clouds, spitting water in all directions. He throws an arm over his eyes and puts his back to the wall. His hand tightens on the grip of his pistol. Runners knock chips of concrete into the wind and the helicopter settles.

"Get in!" Gavin yells, scarcely audible over the _whup-whup-whup_ of chopper blades.

He aims, water lashing into his eyes.

He fires, gunshot all but lost amongst the noise.

Blood splatters across the driver's side window, the windshield.

"Ryan, _no!"_ Jack screams.

He fires again, then splashes through the driven downpour, head down. He hauls the two bodies out of the helicopter. Gavin dies in his arms, gasping _why, why, why._

He gets into the copilot's seat because there's less blood on that side of the windscreen.

Geoff is howling in his ear, calling for him; for Jack; for Gavin. Ray interrupts him on the third go-through.

"He killed them, man," he states.

His earpiece goes dead, and he coaxes the helicopter up, and up, and up, into the coal-fire skies.

* * *

 

After only five minutes, Ray and Geoff get smart and turn off their earpieces, and he can't track them anymore. He takes the helicopter along the most likely route, to where he lost the signal, but there's no sign of them. The helicopter is nearly out of fuel. He sets it down on a dark hill and rigs it to explode six hours from now. Then he abandons it, and treks a mile back to the road.

The leather jacket, the dark jeans, the black outer face, all make him invisible. The driver does not see him as he takes aim, shoots out her windshield and her brains in a single _crack._ The car spins out, scrapes along the guardrail, skids to a halt. There is no one else on the road. He pulls the body out, turns the cars lights off, then carries the corpse the whole mile back to the helicopter. He puts the body in the front seat. He walks the mile again and gets into the car. It still runs.

He is a good driver. He drives with his face off, because one of the headlights is smashed. Even when he gets all the way downtown, no one pulls him over. He finds an empty awning and takes out his phone.

Geoff's phone is off, because he's a professional. Ray's phone is off, probably because it died.

But Ray's DS is still on, transmitting and receiving data, and it updates him on Ray's position every five minutes.

He has been preparing for a very, very long time.

He stays under the awning for fifteen minutes, watching Ray speed across the city, heading towards the bay. He gets back into the car with the broken headlight and heads there, too.

There will not be many boats out.

They will not get very far.

* * *

 

His earpiece cracks back to life as he throttles up the jet ski. A pair of headlights bob out on the water.

"Give me one reason," Geoff says, "not to blow your head off right the fuck now."

"Nah," he replies. The jet ski edges forward, bobbing on the surf. "It's pretty hard to get a clear shot on the water like this."

"Yeah, well _Ray,"_ he says, "isn't on the water."

"Sure." Seawater splashes on his toes, freezing cold. The rain makes the seat slippery.

"I'm taking the shot," Ray mutters. His voice is distant, carrying through Geoff's earpiece.

He gooses the throttle and shoots forward. Icy water sprays onto his back. Something goes _zip_ past his ear.

 _"Fuck,"_ he hears Ray curse. "Fucking _drive,_ Geoff!"

An engine growls in his ear. He opens the throttle on the jet ski. Rain lashes into his eyes. Frigid seawater spatters him with every wave he crashes through. The lights on the water turn away, start moving.

"Drive _where?"_ Geoff squeaks. "Shit, _fuck,_ how did he _find_ us?"

"Who fucking _cares,_ just _drive,_ dude!"

"Is he behind us? _Is he behind us?"_

"Of course he's fucking behind us, what the fuck do _you_ think? _Go faster!"_

_"It doesn't go any faster!"_

Something goes _spwip_ into the water by his foot. He barely notices, speeding through the cold and watery dark. The red tail lights of the boat are getting slowly closer.

Ray curses. His voice is shaking.

"Ray, dude, you gotta hit him, man," Geoff warns.

"I'm fucking _trying,"_ Ray snaps. "What the fuck do you think I'm _doing?"_

"We're fucked, we're fucked, we're fucked," says Geoff.

Something hits him in the shoulder like a sledgehammer, and his whole chest lights up with pain. He grunts, an involuntary sound. The jet ski cannot speed up. He doesn't bother zig-zagging. It was a lucky shot.

"I hit him!" Ray cries.

"Yeah, well he's still fucking coming, so you better fucking hit him again!"

"Guys," he says. The freezing water has half-numbed him to the pain. The closer he gets, the better Ray's shot becomes. The rain is blurring his vision.

"Shut the _fuck_ up!" Geoff screams.

The jet ski leaps off the crest of a wave. He can see Geoff at the head of the boat, now, a silhouette against the dash lights. There's a bright flash. Something zips past his cheek. His left arm has gone numb.

"Fuck," Ray hisses.

"You're gonna run outta ammo sooner or later," he points out. "Y'know, you could just wait until I get there to shoot me. Much more enocomic—ec . . . economical."

 _"How the fuck are you still missing?"_ Geoff demands. If panic ever spoke, it sounded just like him.

"Told you," he says. He can see Ray reloading, the light glinting off Geoff's soaked hair. "Hard to hit a target on the water. Unless it's a really big target. Like a boat!"

Geoff curses, and Ray fires so wide that he doesn't even hear the bullet go past. He hears the _crack_ of the rifle, though, and sees the flash. He knows that Ray is reloading again.

He draws the AK and pours the entire magazine into the boat, holding down the trigger until the gun stops roaring. One of the tail lights shatters. The windshield breaks. Geoff cries out in pain.

The guttural rumble of the boat's engine goes quiet as Geoff slides to the floor.

He catches up.

The water closes over his head, knocks out his breath and smothers him in frigid silence. A bullet zips down at him. It bruises his back.

He comes up onto the boat, water pouring from his numb body. Ray is screaming, trying to reload _again_ with hands that are shaking.

He takes the rifle from Ray. He hits him with the butt of it. He puts two bullets in his head, right between the eyes.

Geoff is rolling on the floor, clutching at his leg. Blood and splinters surround the wound. It is hard to tell, in the rain and the darkness, but he is probably crying.

"No," he begs, crawling away towards an escape that doesn't exist. "Ryan, _no!"_

His head is spinning, dizzy from the shock of the cold water and the hot blood still pouring from his shoulder. He aims. His face is not dizzy. His face is not cold. His face is grinning.

"Alpha Two wins," he says.

There are two flashes, swallowed by the rain.

* * *

 

Edgar greets him when he comes inside. He peels off his face, his jacket, his shirt. He staggers to the bathroom, the soft light of the bluebird in the outlet.

There is a lot of blood. It will not stop flowing. He can feel the bullet still burning against his bones. He presses a towel to the wound and lowers himself into the bathtub. His skin is pale and blue.

Edgar stands on the side of the tub, mewling. He reaches out a hand and she rubs her face against it. The blood only shows on her white patches. She retreats to the seat of the toilet and begins washing her face.

He chuckles. It barely even hurts anymore. He closes his eyes.

"Just need a second," he murmurs. "I'll get it in a second."

Edgar finishes cleaning herself and returns to him, settling on top of the towel.

"You're gonna have to move in a minute, buddy," he warns.

The rain patters on the windows. The cat nestles down to sleep on his chest.

He doesn't mind.

 


End file.
